Got One at Last!

[stuzbot]

Hurrah! --well folks, I've finally taken the plunge. After polluting your forum for the past month and a bit with my increasingly futile quest, I finally pulled the trigger today on that one I mentioned in one of my many other threads:

Expert Opinions Wanted --Apply Within

Engine bay looks about par, similar to mine, although wonder why he needs a bit of wood to keep the ns battery in place. Injectors, about £600 if you do them yourself with refurb injectors. About £1k with a good indi, cost you a kidney and spleen at Toyota... They will need doing around 130k...

www.landcruiserclub.net

I went up to Raventhorpe near Huddersfield to see it today. First thing I did was crawl underneath and have a good look round the axle and axle mounts. A fair bit of surface rust [as you can see from the photos in that other thread]. But I didn't find any rot and it all gave the impression of being pretty solid. Just in need of a few sessions with the wire brush.

Then onto the engine bay. Started first time from cold and with oil filler cap off, not a trace of blowback. Took radiator cap off and no bubbles. Checked oil, black but smelled clean. Tranny fluid nice and clear,

Then it was off for a test drive. Never having been behind the wheel of an auto before, that was the bit I was worrying about,. How would I tell if an auto box was good or bad? Someone in one of my other threads said something along the lines of "Just drive it and you'll know if it feels right", so I did and it felt OK to my untrained senses. Couldn't even feel it changing up and down most of the time and no nasty clunks when going from forward to reverse.

Tried out the 4 wheel drive system [more about that below]. It seemed OK. Drove as I'd expect in lo range. Put the difflock on and the light came on on the dash, wiggled the wheel a bit from side to side and felt the tyres scrubbing. I couldn't give it a proper off-road test as I only had tarmac to go on.

So, I shook hands [or bumped elbows --Covid precautions!] with the guy and bought it. £3700 --which, if it turns out to be as half-decent as I hope, I think is a decent price --especially when you look at what people are asking for some of the rot boxes out there. It's a 2000 reg, so cheaper on road tax and the 1kz engine, so fewer electric goblins to go wrong. VX model, so has lots of gadgets like electric sunroof, leather interior and the Star Trek binnacle, which I've been coveting, since I saw that Prado in Rotherham. MOTd til January, so that gives me a nice bit of breathing space to sort out any issues.

OK. Nothing's perfect. Especially on a 20+ year old truck. So here are the bad bits which I hope are all sortable without breaking the bank:

* Interior is a bit scruffy. A few scuffs and tears in the drivers seat, A couple of loose switches and plastic bits on the fascia.

* Tyres are pretty worn. I'd always put a new set on a truck I bought anyway, as you don't know how long the old ones have been on and, having had a blow-out on the motorway before on a van I bought with tyres of indeterminate age on it, I don't want to go there again! Front tyre on one side was more worn than the other and It was pulling very slightly to the left when doing slow manoeuvres and I could feel a slight judder in the steering while going really slow, or once I got over 70. I'm hoping that will turn out to be just the power steering trying to adapt to the fact the front wheels are out of balance and hopefully a new set of tyres and possibly getting the wheel alignment checked will sort it.

* As per above, the 4x4 system all seemed to be working, at least insofar as I could test it on tarmac. However, the transfer box lever was very stiff to move through the various options. The guy told me he'd never used it as he doesn't go off-road and had never needed to engage it to get through whatever weather conditions he'd had up there. I was a bit concerned about this. But, as all the various ranges did work, and engaged without any nasty noises, albeit with a fair oul' heave on the lever to move from one to the other, I'm hoping that this might be just lack of use.

I think that's about it for now. I drove it home over the M62 summit from Ravensthorpe to Manchester, on the hottest day of the year so far. Keeping a beady eye on the temp gauge all the time [even though I know it's supposed to be pretty useless] and it stayed just under the halfway mark the whole time. Slight steering judder aside, it seemed to pull pretty well. I'm still getting used to the slightly slower acceleration of the auto box than I'm used to with a manual but I was cruising along at what I thought was about 60 on the motorway and glanced at the dial to see I was doing 80.

Also, for what it's worth, the guy I bought it off seemed really genuine. he actually pointed out some faults to me and kept saying to take as long as I wanted to go over the truck. They'd had it 10 years and, when I'd agreed to buy it, his wee sister asked him could she have one last drive in it and the mum and dad both told me to take care of it, coz it was one of the family. And the guy himself asked me if I minded if he filmed me driving it away [which is the kind of soppy sh*t I do, when I sell a vehicle I've really grown attached to].

Anyway, a couple of quick pics. More to follow when I get some better light. By the time I got home, the sun was a bit low over the yard-arm for decent snappage.

The first three incidents of high tension when buying a new motor are:

1: That first inspection & test drive

2: That first drive home

3: That first time you post about it on a forum where people know them inside out, and wait for the "What on Earth were you thinking of?!" comments.

[/I]

 

[chadr]

Well done!

Looks like a good buy, now you just need to start baselining it in prep for your new adventures.

Probably doesn't need an awful lot by the sound of things. Your on the journey now....

 

[Gav missin]

Wahey at last. Looks good. Now your on the slippery slope!!! Wheels tyres lift winch bullbar roofrack............ we've all been there. Great looking truck. Now just enjoy it and what it is very easily capable off doing. Social meet in July and I'm doing a camp over in August if you fancy it. Check out club meetings.

 

[Dave_S]

Oh no, you didn't buy that one?!?

Only joking - looks an honest enough truck, not bad money at all. Happy days. Good luck matey!

 

[stuzbot]

Thanks all. "Honest' is the word someone used on the other thread when I posted it and it's pretty much what my instinct was when I looked it over. A bit scuffed and scraped around bodywork and interior. But the stuff that mattered and that I'd been told to look out for all seemed OK.

I sold my previous van for £7000 and paid £3700 for this one. so even after splashing out around a grand for the tax and insurance, I'll still be about two grand up on the deal for whatever fettling needs doing. As I said, my main area of concern is the slight steering judder. So new tyres and a wheel balance will be first on my shopping list. Then I'll see where I go from there.

 

[stuzbot]

And, while I've got your undivided attention. And to avoid starting yet another thread. As the old war poem said

"Today we have naming of parts"

I've ID'd most of the gadgets and levers in the motor so far. But I'm flummoxed by these ones. Can someone enlighten me? I didn't want to pull or press any of them while driving as I'm not 100% sure whether the VX trim level included an ejector seat or not...

 

[Lancashire Cruiser]

Well done, well I hope you wasn’t haha. No it looks an honest thing. Get the rustproofing done before Winter and the rest is just improving what you have as you go along. I have to say I love mine and wish I had found them when they were a lot newer. I intend to keep mine until either I find an absolute mint low mileage one or I have to give up driving. It’s the perfect vehicle for me, it’s not too special that I can’t load it up with all sorts of stuff, not much in the way of electrickery but comfortable for long distance driving.
Good luck with it and I hope It’s all you hoped for.

 

[Dave_S]

Window lock (stops the kids in the back messing with the eleccie windows); steering column tilt.

 

[chadr]

First pic
Central door locking unlocking
Electric window switch lock/unlock

Second pic
Steering wheel rake adjustment lock/unlock

Edit: beaten to it above ;-)

 

[Shayne]

Bravo

First job remove the radiator its astonishing how much crap accumulates between it and the a/c condenser and check its condition , it cools both gearbox oil and water which is fine until it rots inside letting them mix .

 

[AdventureWagon]

Looks very nice mate! How many miles on it? Like you I'd never driven auto before and it was a shock how easy it was to speed in it. Now I'm used to it it's easier. Other thing that surprised me was the lack of engine braking. There is a band to allow this but you have to manually shift to 2 or L to use it so can only do that at 60km/h or 40mph and below.

 

[stuzbot]

Bravo

First job remove the radiator its astonishing how much crap accumulates between it and the a/c condenser and check its condition , it cools both gearbox oil and water which is fine until it rots inside letting them mix .

Yes. One of my first enhancements will be to do the separate tranny oil cooler mod. I've read so many horror stories about the autoboxes being killed by leaking radiators that I'm going to head that off at the pass right away.

Looks very nice mate! How many miles on it?

It's 212.000. Usually I'd not go near a vehicle with that kind of mileage. But hopefully what they say about Land Cruisers is true and it's just run in. I was impressed there wasn't a hint of blowback when I took the filler cap of. so at least it seems the piston rings are nice and tight still.

...There is a band to allow this but you have to manually shift to 2 or L to use it ...

you're partially pre-empting my next "Today we have naming of parts" question.

Having made the great leap into the unknown by getting behind the wheel of an auto for the first time ever today. I've just about got my head round P / R / N and D. But what are these other mystery gears for. And when and under what circumstances does one use them?....

I'm presuming that wee button with a 2 on it is the one I've heard about that allows you to start in '2nd' on snow, etc? What's the hole above it? Is there supposed to be something else there, or is that just where the bulb for that switch is missing?

 

[stuzbot]

Oh. And I'm hoping the following backs up my theory that the slight steering wobble I could feel at certain low and high speeds is just mismatched tyres /wheel alignment and not anything worse.

I just had a closer look at the tyres tonight and I've got General Grabber ATs on 3 corners but one of the fronts is a Kumho Venture AT with a slightly different tread pattern and less wear than the other corner. So that's not going to help the straight line steering.

The spare is as bald as a coot too. So I reckon my first big spend is going to be a set of tyres. I might check out what price those Kumho Ventures are. The one already on there is good enough to keep as a spare and I've always found Kumho to be one of the better cheaper brands of tyres. Always fitted their weight-rated Commercial ones to my vans and never had any problems with them.

Just a pity that every time I read the brand name I hear it in my head as "cum-hole". Hopefully someone in the know will disabuse me of this notion some day, by explaining it's pronounced 'Kooom-Yo' or suchlike.

 

[stuzbot]

Right. Here's my first extra dumb question. Though I'm sure it won't be the last. I've just been taking advantage of the evening gloom to orientate myself with the various light switch permutations. Everything at the front seems OK... well, the spotlights in the bumper haven't come on yet. But I reckon they're fog lights and I've just not found the right combination to trigger them yet.

But more oddly. I don't seem to have the rear lights working right. The ones in the bumper come on. But not the ones higher up. As I was on my own, I wasn't able to see if these were brake lights only [seems highly unlikely]. But they didn't light up at all, apart from when I hit the foglight button on the dash and then the right-hand one lit up.

Did I miss something obvious, or have I unearthed [pun intended!] my first electrical gremlin?

20% BONUS IDIOCY FREE:

I also had another WTF moment during this twizzling the steering wheel stalks session. See the puddle of water on the ground? Right under the exhaust. I walked round the back of the car to see if the rear lights were working and saw this water dripping looking like it was coming from the exhaust. "WTF?" i thought, musing on catalytic convertors and the like. Before I eventually realised that the water had come from the squirty rear window washer, which I'd been messing with and had then run along the bottom of the window, down the side of the door, around the plastic bumper and then dripped off, right in front of the tailpipe.

 

[Shayne]

Upper lights are mostly duds from factory because the law changed during production about the spare wheel hiding one when the door is open , some of us modified or replaced them to have them working , shouldn't be to hard to find the threads on here .

Fog light switch is low to the right of the steering wheel , it might only work when headlights are on low beam , i cant remember ever using them ?

I have no idea about your gear options both my 90's are manual

 

[chadr]

The upper body mounted lamps only house the reverse and fog lights on UK models - all the other lights (tail/brake/indicator) are in the bumper mounted units.

Long story short is that it's to do with safety regs or similar as the spare wheel is considered to obstruct the body mounted lamps - hence Toyota had to find an alternative place, so mounted them in the bumper.

Lots of info on this and quite a few have retrofitting lights into the body units - search function is your friend

 

[chadr]

H'mmm, beaten to it again. I seem to be constantly coming second today....at least the wife will be pleased, for a change.

 

[Dave_S]

In other words - the lights are fine. Diahatsu had the same situation with the Fourtrak if I recall correctly. Always look "wrong", but its okay. BTW, looks like you only have one headlight washer jet - have a play with that when you're bored - should work when the lights are also on.... ;-)

 

[Beastrider]

Hello - the two switches next to the gear selector are ‘2nd’ which, as you said, starts you off in 2nd to avoid the higher torque of 1st gear spinning a wheel - for use in snow and mud. The other one is PWR meaning ‘Power’. The label on yours is missing, but you should see PWR on the dash when you press it. This one commands the transmission to hold on to lower gears for longer to aid more rapid acceleration. It can also be used to reduce unwanted upshifts on an uphill. Both switches have little bulbs in them.

If yours is factory standard, you’ll have one reversing light on one side and one fog light on the other side of the vertical tail-lights. You’ll find that it’s only those positions have bulb holders and reflectors, but many choose to add extra lights. Have fun with your new toy!

 

[SteveJB]

Right truck
Right time
Right price
Right bloke and a dammed nice colour